Archive for the ‘Somerset’ category

Bath Blue, a classic blue veined cheese made by The Bath Soft Cheese Co, has scooped the top award at the World Cheese Awards.
It pipped 2,600 cheeses to triumph in London, with Canadian judge Louis Aird describing it as “poetry; like a river of cream over rocks, a perfectly balanced blue cheese with long, long lingering flavours.”
The final Supreme panel of judges, representing nations including Australia, USA, South Africa, Brazil, New Zealand and Canada, concurred, awarding the Bath Blue the highest score of the final judging stage.
Graham Padfield, managing director of The Bath Soft Cheese Co, said: “This is truly fantastic news. It’s a huge privilege to be the winner and we can’t quite believe that we are now the makers of the World Champion Cheese. This gives us great confidence for the future as we have just invested in a new dairy building and we were taking a leap of faith, but this award confirms that we are getting our cheese right and that is a wonderful endorsement.”
The cheese is made without any mechanisation and the milk comes from our herd of 160 organic cows.
Over 250 cheese experts from 26 nations travelled to London Olympia to judge in the space of a single morning. The final judging panel of top-name global experts – including Cathy Strange of Whole Foods Market in the US, Suzy O’Regan of Woolworths Foods in South Africa, Ros Windsor of London’s Paxton & Whitfield and Kris Lloyd of Australian artisan cheese-maker Woodside Cheese Wrights – then tasted a shortlist of 16 cheeses to select the 2014 World Champion.
The World Cheese Awards, now in its 26th year, returned to London for 2014 after a three-year run at the BBC Good Food Show at Birmingham’s NEC.
Organised by the Guild of Fine Food, this year’s event drew entries from 33 countries including New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, Mexico, Argentina and Brazil.

It’s important you don’t get intimidated in competitions, but entrants into the 10th South West Chef of the Year competition would be allowed a whimper when they see the judging panel includes Michael Caines, Nathan Outlaw, James Tanner, Simon Hulstone, Mark Hix, Nathan Outlaw and more.

Entries are now open for the competition aimed at experienced pros, up and coming young chefs and amateur cooks.

A new class is being launched this year, the Junior Class, aimed at children aged 11 to 16.

Autumn is set to be late this year, but when it arrives it should bring a bumper crop of fruits and berries in the countryside, according to the Woodland Trust.

The autumn fruiting is expected to be delayed as a result of the late spring, but the recent warm weather means wild berry crops will flourish, according to early data collected by the public the Trust’s nature’s calendar project.

The promise of a bumper autumn is good news for wildlife, which suffered in the face of exceptionally poor crops of wild fruit last year when trees and shrubs were affected by the washout summer, and then were hit by this spring’s cold snap.

Community Pubs Minister Brandon Lewis will announce at the Great British Beer festival on Tuesday that 100 pubs in England have now been listed by councils as Assets of Community Value (ACV), which affords them greater protection from being sold off for redevelopment.

Mr Lewis will make the announcement while opening CAMRA’s Great British Beer Festival, “Britain’s Biggest Pub” with over 800 real ales, ciders and perries on offer to 55,000 people this week.

Under new Community Right to Bid powers introduced through the Localism Act listing a pub as an ACV with the Council means a pub can’t be sold on without the local community being told.

It gives the council greater ability to refuse planning applications from developers and the community up to six months to put in a bid to buy the pub should it be put up for sale.

Mr Lewis said: “CAMRA’s campaign to list your local is doing a fabulous job raising awareness of our new Community Right to Bid and I am delighted that in 100­ loved locals have now been listed as assets of community value. Cheers to each and every one!

“We have known for hundreds of years just how valuable our locals are. Not just as a place to grab a pint but also to the economies and communities of those they serve and that is why we are doing everything we can to support and safeguard community pubs from closure.”

CAMRA’s chief executive Mike Benner added that he was pleased that the Government has recognised the vital importance of pubs and “empowered communities to protect them”.

“By listing their local, communities are ensuring that if the pub is under threat in the future, there is a much-needed extra layer of protection which “stops the clock” should it be put up for sale,” he said.

The announcement that 100 pubs have been listed as ACVs means pubs are the most listed community building and among the most popular listed asset overall, second only to playing fields, he added,

“CAMRA’s List Your Local campaign is aiming to get 300 pubs listed as community assets. We’re a third of the way there and we encourage communities to make the most of these new powers to help us achieve that goal,” he continued.

The Great British Beer Festival will be officially opened by Mr Lewis on Tuesday August 13.